Anti-censorship advocates have joined the book publisher Penguin Random House in condemning a Texas county that reclassified an account of European settlers’ colonization of Indigenous Americans as fiction.
The furor in Montgomery county – near Houston – follows the decision by a citizens review panel, at the behest of rightwing activists, to place Colonization and the Wampanoag Story by Linda Coombs in the fiction section of children’s libraries
Blake
Dracula author Bram Stoker’s lost story unearthed after 134 years in National Library of Ireland
An amateur historian has discovered a long-lost short story by Bram Stoker, published just seven years before his legendary gothic novel Dracula.
Brian Cleary stumbled upon the 134-year-old ghostly tale while browsing the archives of the National Library of Ireland.
Gibbet Hill was originally published in a Dublin newspaper in 1890 – when the Irishman started working on Dracula – but has been undocumented ever since.
Stoker biographer Paul Murray says the story sheds light on his development as an author and was a significant “station on his route to publishing Dracula”.
The ghostly story tells the tale of a sailor murdered by three criminals whose bodies were strung up on a hanging gallows as a warning to passing travellers.
Book Bans Are Unhealthy for Kids and Society
Banning Books Isn%u2019t Just Morally Wrong. It%u2019s Also Unhealthy
Book banning is an assault on our individual and collective health—our imaginative
health, our intellectual health, our physical health, and the health of our society. Luckily, we
already have a cure: fighting for the freedom to read. Stories allow us all to give meaning to the world around us and to envision something better.
This Museum Is Old. But With $75 Million to Spend, Why Is It So Dingy?
This Museum Is Old. But With $75 Million to Spend, Why Is It So Dingy?
Decades of mismanagement and financial neglect have turned the New York State Museum, a trove of national treasures, into a dreary institution.
‘AI-Mazing Tech-Venture’: National Archives Pushes Google Gemini AI on Employees
‘AI-Mazing Tech-Venture’: National Archives Pushes Google Gemini AI on Employees
In June, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) gave employees a presentation and tech demo called “AI-mazing Tech-venture” in which Google’s Gemini AI was presented as a tool archives employees could use to “enhance productivity.” During a demo, the AI was queried with questions about the John F. Kennedy assassination, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by 404 Media using a public records request.
One worker who attended the presentation told 404 Media “I suspect they’re going to introduce it to the workplace. I’m just a person who works there and hates AI bullshit.”
Guided by Vices
The biggest social platforms are fond of reminding us about how they facilitate connections and help us communicate around the world. They are a little bit like a digital third place. And, just as you would not hang out somewhere that was actively trying to sabotage your ability to chat with your friends in real life, it is hard to know why you would do so online, either. Happily, where Google and Meta and X exhaust me with their choices, there are a wealth of new ideas that bring back joy.
Texas county sidelines librarians, reclassifies book on abuse of Native Americans as “fiction”
Texas county sidelines librarians
A Texas county has mandated public libraries move a well-regarded children’s book documenting the mistreatment of Native Americans in New England — Colonization and the Wampanoag Story — from the “non-fiction” section to “fiction.” The decision was made after the government of Montgomery County, under pressure from right-wing activists, removed librarians from the process of reviewing children’s books and replaced them with a “Citizens Review Committee.” Colonization and the Wampanoag Story was “challenged” by an unknown person on September 10, 2024. The Committee responded by ordering that the book be moved to the fiction section of public libraries in Montgomery County by October 17, 2024, according to public records obtained by the Texas Freedom To Read Project shared with Popular Information.
How public libraries are becoming community hubs in the midst of disasters
How public libraries are becoming community hubs in the midst of disastersBeyond just green upgrades, libraries across the country have become centers for resilience and recovery in the face of climate change.
A public library in Ohio is helping entrepreneurs — and the economy
Beyond books: How a public library in Ohio's Rust Belt is spurring economic growth
Librarians hold drop-in hours and take one-on-one appointments. They also hosts classes on topics like bookkeeping, grant writing and business plan development.
And it’s all free.
Linda Faye Lucas, a former business consultant, used to charge clients hundreds of dollars for this kind of work.
TIME’s 1990 “Twentysomething” article on Generation X
By David M. Gross and Sophfronia Scott[2018 companion podcast interview with Sophfronia Scott online here.]
They have trouble making decisions. They would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder. They have few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is as short as one zap of a TV dial. They hate yuppies, hippies and druggies. They postpone marriage because they dread divorce. They sneer at Range Rovers, Rolexes and red suspenders. What they hold dear are family life, local activism, national parks, penny loafers and mountain bikes. They possess only a hazy sense of their own identity but a monumental preoccupation with all the problems the preceding generation will leave for them to fix.
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